ble effort. "You can't
put me out on the road this time. As I was saying--"

"What do you mean by those words, sir?"

"Let me into the room, my boy, and I'll tell you and her together,
quietly, just what I mean. I want to tell both of you a plain story, and
appeal to _her_ sense of justice. She's old enough to act for herself.
Perhaps you think I haven't heard something of Dorothy's, or
what-you-call-her's, spirit by this time."

"Let her name alone!" cried Donald, furiously. "If you mention my sister
again, I'll knock you flat, you overgrown ruffian!"

"Hush, not so fast! You'll have those fellows out here in a minute.
What's the use of letting everybody into our private affairs?"

Here Eben stepped further into the hall, followed by Donald.

"Let me into that room, will you?"

Donald, taking the key from his pocket, now threw open the door, with a
"much good may it do you;" and, closing it again after Slade had
entered, coolly locked him in the room. The blinds flew open. Don rushed
out to the still deserted stoop, only to see Eben Slade's angry face
glaring at him from the window. The man could have got through the
window easily enough, but he preferred his present position. Leaning
out, with his elbows on the sill, he said distinctly, in a passionate,
low voice:

"You've baffled me this time, Donald Reed, but I'll carry the day yet.
That girl, wherever she's gone to, is no more your sister than she is
mine, and I can prove it to her! She's my niece--my own sister's child!
I've a right to her, and I can prove it. She's going back home with me,
out West, where my wife's waitin' for her. Now, sir, what have you to
say to that?"

The poor boy, aghast at Eben's statement, stood at first as if stunned;
but recovering himself, he made a rush toward Eben, not blindly, but
with a fierce determination to clutch him by the throat and force him to
unsay his terrible words.

Eben sprang from the window at a bound. A struggle ensued--brief,
violent. Donald might have been mastered, had not a strong man sprung
upon them and with one blow knocked Eben Slade prostrate upon the
boards.

It was Sailor Jack, who had driven up unperceived and leaped from the
buggy just in time.

Three or four men rushed from the bar-room, all calling out at once.

"What's the matter here?"

"Any one killed?--What's the row?"

"Hi!--Separate them!" shouted the stout, red-faced landlord, coming out
slowly behind the others and, as usua